It may have its flaws, but this iOS strategy game is a frontier brimming with possibility…

The bigger we become, the more the world around us seems to shrink. Whether personally or in society at large, our need to reach for the stars has wiped away any enigma which might once have existed beyond that map’s edges. Perhaps this is why Total Domination: Reborn is so appealing. Whilst this iOS real-time strategy can be as off-putting as it is visually tame, once you’ve climbed those barriers you’ll break into a realm of possibility where success and failure dance on the edge of a dime.

A port of the popular free-to-play game, this particular Total Domination transitions from PC to iOS with modest grace. Whilst veterans will be greeted by a familiar experience to the one that has enjoyed 30 million downloads so far, newcomers can expect a more digestible take that loses none of the franchise’s complexity.

Handing players their own slice of territory in a post-apocalyptic world, Reborn feels like a gushing homage to the Command & Conquers of old; gameplay revolves around that wonted cycle of gathering resources, building a base, amassing armies and engaging in straightforward diplomacy with your neighbours.

Even Reborn’s visuals approach direct homage. This future is one of grimy industrialisation, a place where robotic eye augments and wire hair pass as acceptable fashion statements. Still, that isn’t a criticism. Such adherence to tried-and-true formulas contributes enormously to the game’s addictive streak.

Such charm can also be attributed to intelligent controls. They’re seamless. Doing away with its predecessor’s layout entirely, Reborn avoids any frustration that may have occurred from a badly translated interface by rebuilding everything specifically for touchscreens. Tap to select, hold to uproot buildings and drag cursors up or down to decide unit size. It’s simple, efficient and – eventually – invisible. What you might have expected to be a series of compromises is hence an arguably superior experience.

Combat is similarly deft, though here Reborn has more in common with its standalone equivalent. Bypassing the need for extensive micromanagement on a system ill-equipped to handle it, developer Plarium has shrewdly decided to let battles occur off-screen.

Although this might remove the immediacy of commanding your troops on-field, letting the game orchestrate any number-crunching allows players to focus on the bigger picture. This is Total Domination in a nutshell; complex ideas are pared down until they’re both accessible and easygoing, a welcome trait on platforms where time is often fleeting.

However, whilst empire-building benefits from this mentality (construction is as simple as a tap of the finger) such straightforward design may not be due to attempted user-friendliness alone. Simply put, Reborn lacks flair. Even if players dodge the bullet of endless minutiae, the world they preside over is repetitive and utterly devoid of movement. A tiresome copy-paste affair, the appeal of this science fiction setting loses its sheen when you realise just how tediously static it all is.

Construction itself suffers a similar fate. Structures appear on-screen fully formed from the off, a direct juxtaposition to the progress-bar indicating how close they are to completion. It may be a low blow to criticise free-to-play games of unknown budget and manpower, but for a series this popular these failings smack of laziness.

Of course, this is assuming you haven’t already been overcome by Reborn’s avalanche of tutorials. They might be palatable when taken alone, but Plarium thrusts them down player’s throats in a suffocating information-dump instead. Total Domination may be a real-time strategy with comparatively little fat, yet trying to learn its web of systems from the get-go is asking too much. This is one of the biggest turn-offs of the game, and it threatens to overwhelm with its similarity to a hardcore revision session.

Once you’ve scaled this crest you’ll nevertheless be treated to a broad frontier of possibility. This is where Reborn really comes into its own. In a world crippled by endless war and filled with clans vying for precious resources, you may not notice its sheer brilliance when you’re initially hurled into the mixing pot. Because this isn’t just irrelevant flavour; these warring goliaths are real people shaping their own empires, inhabiting an organic world where alliances could fall at any moment and upstarts might claw their way to dominance at the head of a mighty clan.

It’s entirely up to you who you align yourself with and fight against. Meanwhile, the riches of the wastes are yours to take in any way you deem fit. Zooming out to the world map will reveal countless other players calling for trade or squabbling over invaluable deposits they will fight tooth-and-nail for.

Not that human competitors are the only ones you’ll have to deal with. There are regular missions to be had against Reborn’s artificial intellegence too, tasking you with attacking or defending key points for experience or potential rewards. Even though these ideas are unimpressive in and of themselves, they crash together to make a world of enthralling potential when taken en masse.

As you might suspect, Total Domination’s rigmarole is one that’s endlessly dragging you back for more. Resources are scarce and your own stocks will run out fast. As supply drops occur in real-time, there’s thus genuine incentive to raid other players for any goods you’re short of.

Not that this doesn’t have its own caveat. Because the entirety of Total Domination – be it construction, fighting or technology research – requires varying lengths to complete, the end result is a lot of clock-watching. This can make for disjointed play, especially when you must wait for every mission and supply to trickle into your waiting hands.

This isn’t always a negative. For starters it makes the world feel tangibly weighted in reality. Yet there’s always the suspicion at the back of your mind that this isn’t the whole story. Namely, you can always buy more resources by spending crystals. The problem? Crystals are the rarest of treasures gained only through the likes of levelling up and opening your real-world wallet. As a result, Total Domination: Reborn runs the risk of encouraging ‘pay to win’ strategies.

There are a number of precautions to disallow unfair tactics – you cannot assault players below level 15 and your armies must be maintained with in-game credits – but it’s hard to imagine this nixing the problem entirely. What should have been a game of skilled maneuvering could well boil down to a battle of wallets instead.

It’s this unpredictability that makes the Total Domination franchise so endearing, though. A ruthless frontier where anything could happen, there’s something deeply thrilling about the chance to carve your name in a landscape where power is fleeting and fortune favours the bold. It is – in every sense of the name – a digital wild west. Say what you like about free-to-play; in a world lacking new horizons, this one hits just the spot.